Tamun and Je'ka trudged through fractured terrain, cloaked in scavenged garb that mimicked the look of displaced Zelith citizens burned robes, charred insignia, bloodied fingers wrapped in grime-stained cloth. Behind them, the Thal'Karn creature Esh'tal stalked like a living shadow, its form hidden beneath the trembling veil of a cloaking field. The monster's iridescent black chitin shimmered with an unnatural, oily sheen, like obsidian glass twisted with the essence of nightmares. This was not a siege-beast bred for slaughter it was a thing of silence and madness.
Walking beside it was its handler, Ruthen a hulking woman whose towering physique defied standard Mahasimu proportions. Her body was crisscrossed with ritual scars etched in sacred glyphwork, each mark denoting successful deployments, kills, and control over horrors that had driven others insane. Her left arm had been replaced entirely with a bonded neural gauntlet, a grotesque fusion of living flesh and blacksteel tendrils. From it, control signals radiated like invisible leashes into the beast's spine, allowing her to guide Esh'tal with thought alone.
Ruthen barely spoke. Her breath steamed in the cold air. Her left eye glowed faintly from the symbiotic graft implanted into her skull—feeding her a cascade of data from the beast's sensorium. The Thal'Karn moved like a myth behind her, claws soundless, breathing slow and almost serpentine.
In the dusk light, rimmed by aurora-fire from the Mahasimu orbital assault, a Zelith recon patrol emerged from the rubble of a collapsed sensor tower. Five soldiers, weapons raised, armor painted in the blues and golds of House Vekra.
"Halt!" barked the lead officer, a female scout with a plasma rifle leveled straight at Je'ka's chest. "Identify yourselves."
Tamun bowed slightly, adopting the voice of a defeated refugee. "We're all that's left from Bastion Twelve. The Mahasimu burned it down three days ago. We've been hiding, running… please. We have information. Let us speak to your commander."
A pause. Suspicion hardened in the officer's eyes. "You two don't look like Bastion survivors. Too clean. Too… alert." She circled them slowly, her eyes narrowing at the faint trace of unfamiliar glyphwork still etched along Tamun's left temple.
Je'ka coughed and dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach as if in pain. "Please… we have intel. We know where their dropships landed. We saw one of their commanders…"
The patrol exchanged glances. One of them leaned toward the officer and whispered, "Protocol says bring them in. If they're lying, Command will extract truth from bone."
"Fine. Move," she ordered, waving her rifle. "But any tricks"
"I die screaming," Tamun said flatly, allowing himself a shiver of false fear.
Behind them, Esh'tal and Ruthen faded into shadow, activating the Thal'Karn's cloaking matrix. With a brief neural pulse, Ruthen silenced the beast's breath, and it vanished into the rubble like a waking hallucination. She tapped her gauntlet, opening a silent channel to the buried holdout.
Within the Walls – Zelith Defensive Line
They were marched beneath thick barricade-walls formed from shattered skysteel and active shielding pylons. Zelith banners hung tattered above artillery nests. Explosions rumbled in the distance as Admiral Tyven's outer fleet engaged Mahasimu blockading forces in sporadic skirmishes.
Commander Vekra, massive and imperious in reinforced exo-armor, stood with arms crossed in the central compound. He watched the prisoners being led in and muttered, "Bring them to Vault 4. Strip them, scan them, break them. If they're spies, I want their brains before their names."
Tamun and Je'ka exchanged a subtle glance success. They were in.
The Hidden Cell – Mahasimu Forward Staging Base
Their lair had once been a fuel processing node from a ruined Zelith refinery—now collapsed and twisted into a subterranean haunt, buried beneath tons of rubble and interference. Within it, Ruthen crouched silently beside Esh'tal, now curled and dormant in its containment shell like a slumbering god-beast. Despite its stillness, every breath it took exhaled a psychic hum that could make lesser minds twitch.
Ruthen's fingers, both organic and synthetic, moved with sharp discipline across her neural interface. With one thought, she connected to the encrypted command lattice.
A spectral projection flickered into being Vaelora, carved in spectral black, her gaze illuminated by glowing eyes. The dread Whisperer studied the scene and spoke with the force of a fallen queen.
"Report."
Ruthen answered, her voice a deep rasp shaped by decades of field-command. "The twins have infiltrated the perimeter. Commander Vekra was present at the intake. They're being processed now."
"Excellent." Vaelora's smile was shallow, unreadable. "Keep Esh'tal sealed unless the contingency is triggered. Do not reveal yourself unless one or both fail. Their suffering must be absolute."
"As you command."
Vaelora's image flickered and vanished like mist.
The High Orbit – Tyven's Grand Fleet, Command Vessel Resolute Sky
Admiral Tyven paced the bridge, his mind afire with contradictions. The Mahasimu had pulled back, yes—but too easily. Their last strike pattern had been a feint, a dance of plasma and deception. Now their fleet lingered at the edges of ideal weapons range silent, waiting.
"Something is happening on the surface," Tyven muttered. "They want us distracted. Something is crawling into our bones while we look to the stars."
"Commander Vekra is tightening security," his adjutant said.
"Not enough. Bring in orbital deep-sweeps. Scramble the sensor net. I want probes in every tunnel, every sewer, every old vent shaft. If the Mahasimu left a ghost behind, I'll find it."
He turned to the starfield, staring at the void where Admiral Kia's ships still hovered like vultures over a rotting carcass.
"They think they're clever," he whispered. "But they forget—we survived the First Eclipse. We learned how to bleed shadows."